In 24 hours, we've accomplished our goal.

My mom mentioned the idea of a family vacation, well over a year ago. You know how that goes though, at first your just not sure it will actually happen. But what began as a possibility, eventually became a reality, and we were set to take our first family vacation in 16 years. 

  A year is a long time to plan something, and sometimes we thought it would never get here. So at times all we could do was think about the beauty that awaited us...

Saturday morning, WAAAAY before the crack of dawn, we loaded up and hit the road. Kids did remarkably well (anyone that knows me, knows I'm the problem) and by late afternoon we finally made it!

We waisted NO time, and hit the pool!

We let the kids get a quick taste of the week ahead, but we were all startving and wanted to get to dinner. And so we kicked off the week of gorging ourselves....

The kids have been counting down the days for this vacation for weeks, so needless to say, we have some pretty happy kids on our hands.

But Hope had one major issue on the brain. CAN WE GO TO THE BEACH? Must have heard this 342 times in less than an hour.

The last time she had been to beach, she was two, so she had no real memories of it.

I was thinking she might be intimidated by it. I wasn't really sure how she was deal with it...

Um, I was sorely mistaken. IT WAS LOVE.

It quickly dawned on me that I should have put them in their suits. This whole "walk" on the beach thing I suggested just wasn't going to work. No sir.

It was only a matter of time, and they were going in. IN THEIR CLOTHES.

Honestly, I think this picture says it all.

Soaked from head to toe. AND IT WAS A BLAST.

But the kids weren't the only ones there enjoying themselves.

So, in less than 24 hours we had accomplished our goal. FUN.


BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE.

So, at a mere 6:30 A.M., my children came running in our room..."MOMMY LET'S GET UP AND GO TO THE BEACH" My kids up at 6:30. Jo's boys up at 10:30. THAT is what we have to look forward to moms.

ANYWAYS.

So, we held them off as long as we could, but there was more fun to be had.

And honestly, it was SUCH fun.

Hope and I attempted a sand castle, but it was completely GHETTO.

 
So, back to the real fun.

And then daddy agreed to something, only a good daddy would.

 And then after a very full day at the beach and pool, we set back out to gorge some more.

 And I do believe, that someone may have gotten a little too much sun.

After an awesome meal of 7,265 calories we decided to go hit up the pier.

Unfortunately, I had a smudge on my lens for this picture. GAH.

But pier was a success too. We actually saw MANY dolphins! And could you ever tell we were from Indiana and Kentucky. We were screaming like banshees every time we captured a glance of one come up in the water. We were ridiculous.

But I'm telling you, it's so exciting to see one of those things in person!

Destin so far, has been great. The weather is perfect, the beach is beautiful and we are just really enjoying ourselves.  I'm really thankful to my parents for making this happen, and to DaddyMac for his computer so I can blog, and of course for being such a good dad. Happy Father's Day to you, Dad.

And Happy Father's Day to my baby daddy.